Chapter Forty-One
“What are you doing?” My voice was wary but thick. Confused, I reached up and felt wetness on my cheeks.
The fae looked up at me, and my breath caught at the sight of his face. Even tear-stained and splotchy, he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. His big black eyes gleamed with a blue sheen in the darkness of the hall. I still didn’t understand how I could somehow see in the dark now.
“Ash,” he whispered, his low voice hoarse with sorrow. “Please. I’m sorry.”
So he knew me, then. He knew my name. I tried to step back, to dislodge him. Reluctantly, he uncurled his trembling arms from around my knees.
“What are you sorry for?” I asked, just as wary as before.
Did he have something to do with what the Carlin had done to me? But then why had I never seen him before? I’d rememberhim, surely, even if he’d been involved in her awful plans. His face was too beautiful to ever forget.
“For everything,” he sobbed, sitting back on his heels and staring down at his pale, long-fingered hands. I followed his gaze for a moment. They were lovely hands. Strong but fine-boned, with delicate veins.
For everything? What? So…hadhe been involved in the Carlin’s plans?
If he was sorry, did that mean he was here to help me?
“Who are you?” I asked cautiously, suspicious in case this was a trick.
His breath hitched, and he stared up at me, apparently too stunned to even cry for a brief moment.
“Wh-what?” he asked, fingers twitching against his thighs.
“Who are you?” I repeated, glancing round the room. “Why are you in here… crying?” I frowned at him, tempted to squat down to his level. “Are you hurt?”
He stared up at me, lips parted. Then his face crumpled.
“Are you hurt?” I asked again with a touch of urgency. I crouched down and, after a momentary hesitation, reached out to rest my hand on his shoulder.
I froze before I could touch him, staring at my hand.
My skin was… golden.
Not just tanned. It… it almost had a faint sheen. Even in the weird, dark light I could somehow see in, it glimmered just a little.
I tried to pull my hand back to take a closer look, but the fae clutched at it with both of his, making me jump.
“You don’t remember me.” He broke into fresh tears. Jesus, what waswrongwith him? “You don’t remember me.”
“I don’t kno—” For some reason, the words got stuck in my throat. “No. I don’t remember you,” I said instead, awkwardly tugging my hand free and standing up.
“No,” he burst out, scrambling to grab at my legs when I took a step away. “No—please—please don’t forget me—”
I shook him off and walked quicker. I was beyond confused. If he was one of the Carlin’s minions, he was a shit one. Because he just knelt there, a crumpled, pitiful heap on the floor, and watched me cross the hall to those wide, arching doors. He didn’t try to stop me, even though I’d been the Carlin’s prisoner. He didn’t jump up and snatch the wicked blade gleaming at his hip, telling me I couldn’t leave.
I glanced back at him once, my brows twitching with confusion, before I pulled open one of the heavy doors and slipped out into the empty front hall, determined to get as far away from this fucking place as I could.
In the better light, I glanced down to see what had caused that sharp pinch to flare on my chest. I stared at my golden skin again, momentarily distracted, before noticing the tiny, rough X that had somehow appeared in the dead centre of my chest. Like someone had tattooed it into my skin with black ink.
I felt something shift against my throat. Reaching up, my fingers snagged on something, and as I pulled it away from my neck, I saw it was a tiny black feather. I didn’t remember ever having a necklace like that. Had the Carlin put it on me? Was it part of her game?
I didn’t have time to inspect any of it now. To wonder. I needed to get out of this place. I needed to get far away from the Carlin and her evil sons. Balor, Bres and Cethlen.
Was there a fourth? No, I didn’t think so. Or if there was, I’d never met him, and for a brief moment I wondered why the question had even popped into my head. Three was enough. Why borrow trouble by imagining there were more of them?
Fury boiled in my veins. I wanted to kill her. Her and her three sons. The fear of being caught loose in here faded, drowned out by murderous rage that felt foreign and unlike me, but I didn’t question it.